COUNTYWIDE : Students Compete in Geography Bowl

Ventura County students were quizzed on their knowledge of world geography and received a lesson in how space technology is used in monitoring the environment Saturday at the first Geography Bowl at Oxnard College.

Margaret E. Elliott, ecologist for the geographic analysis center at the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory at Port Hueneme, explained how spy planes, satellites and 35-millimeter cameras help in mapping the Earth and protecting its environment.

“People often think of the Defense Department as the guys coming with the bulldozers, but they really have a strong commitment to the ecology and want the public to know that,” she said, citing the Point Mugu Pacific Missile Test Center’s marine bird preserve as an example.

As part of the day’s events, 26 students from Oxnard College and area high schools competed in a geography quiz for prizes.

Patricia Calhon and Raymond Crawford, both Oxnard College students, placed first and second in the college division.

The first-place high school student was Shawn Harris, a Thousand Oaks High School senior, and Dean T. Arnow, an Adolfo Camarillo High School junior, won second place. Tying for third place were sophomores Spencer Nyholm of Oxnard High School and Shane Gramhew and Rusty M. Jones, both of Thousand Oaks High.

Thousand Oaks High School sent the largest group of students to the event. They were led by Gregory J. Baker, a geography teacher and a representative of the California Geographic Alliance, which sponsored the event along with the college and the office of the Ventura County superintendent of schools.

Baker said the timing of the event was appropriate because of a state plan to include geography in a new social studies framework for high schools beginning in 1992.